Share and request data

Once your data is in Portfolio Manager, there are many ways to share your results and request data from others.

Connect with others

The first step to sharing your properties is to connect with other Portfolio Manager users. Simply search for their account within Portfolio Manager and send them a connection request. Once connected, you can easily share individual properties and meters.

Share your properties

There are many reasons you may want to share access to your property. For example, you may want to share with colleagues or with other partners that are helping you to improve your performance. You may also want to share with an organization running a competition in which you’re participating. And in some cases, you may want to share a property that has been shared with you, i.e., “share forward.” 

Regardless who you’re sharing with, when you choose to share a property, you have the flexibility to set the right level of permissions:

  • Read Only – All of your information, including your meter readings, will be visible, but can’t be edited or shared with others (“Share Forward”). This may be appropriate if you’re sharing with a campaign or outside organization.
  • Full Access – All of your data will be visible, can be edited, and can be shared with others (“Share Forward”), even others with whom you are not connected. This may be appropriate if you’re sharing with one of your colleagues or with your service provider.
  • Custom Access – You decide which parts of your data you want to share, and if you want others to be able to edit and/or re-share the property. For example, you may have a colleague in another office responsible for keeping your property use details up to date, but you don’t want that person to edit your meter entries. You can customize the access rights accordingly.
  • Exchange Data – Like in the Custom Option, you decide which parts of your data you want to share, and if you want others to be able to edit and/or re-share the property. This option is appropriate when you want to share properties with an organization you’ve hired to exchange data with Portfolio Manager to keep your portfolio up-to-date.

Share your performance

There are three key ways to share your performance with others:

  • Charts & Graphs – In our Charts & Graphs Section, we have a variety of pie charts and bar graphs available for simple download. Each figure can be exported as its own .png file so that you can incorporate it into a management report or PowerPoint presentation about your building.
  • ENERGY STAR performance documents – EPA offers several performance documents, which may be useful for documenting your success to others, especially in official settings.
  • Data requests – Any Portfolio Manager user can create data requests. These ask for specific performance metrics, such as your energy use or GHG emissions. You can access these requests from your account and provide this information. When you respond to a request, you only provide the specific performance metrics that were requested. You do not share your property.

Request data from others

You can create a custom report template to collect specific data from other Portfolio Manager users. Once you create your report, it’s easy to generate a web link, which you can email or post online for others to access. When they click on the link, the report automatically becomes available in their account. They’ll select the buildings to add to the report and release the data back to you. You’ll then be able to run reports on the data for all buildings that responded to your request.

Additional information